March 14, 2024
OLIVER PETERSON: James Paterson is the shadow Minister for Cyber Security and Home Affairs, good afternoon.
JAMES PATERSON: Good to be with you.
PETERSON: What do you make at the United States House of Representatives passing this bill to potentially ban TikTok?
PATERSON: It's a hugely significant step forward by the United States, particularly because the margin with which it passed more than 350 votes in favour, just 60 odd votes against. It's very rare to get such bipartisan agreement on anything in Washington, D.C., but one thing they do agree is that TikTok is a very serious national security threat to America, and it is for Australia too.
PETERSON: Should we follow their lead?
PATERSON: We must follow their lead, because if we don't, we will be left behind and TikTok will be safe to use in the United States because we'll be free of Chinese Communist Party influence. But it won't be safe to use in Australia because the Chinese Communist Party will continue to control it. The only thing we can do to stop that happening is for Australia to pass similar legislation, and I hope the Albanese government is already busily drafting it.
PETERSON: The Prime Minister earlier today has said there are no plans at the moment that the government does not use TikTok on government issued phones, he think that's an appropriate measure that's been put in place, but you don't think that's enough?
PATERSON: It's a good start, but it admits that there's a problem. If it's not safe to be on the device of a public servant, why is is safe to be on the device of 8 million Australians, including young Australians, who now use TikTok as the dominant source of news and information about the world? And it's a source of information that could be controlled by the Chinese Communist Party and has in the past. It's been proven that issues sensitive to the Chinese Communist Party like the treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang is suppressed on the platform. And it's also been demonstrated that issues that are divisive in the West, like Israel-Gaza, that pro-Hamas mass content is far more prevalent on TikTok than any other platform, and it's very hard to imagine how that happens naturally.
PETERSON: So is this because of the influence by the government in China about exactly what you can say by their algorithm versus the other platforms like Facebook, Instagram, X, etc.?
PATERSON: Authoritarian states, including China try and influence our democracy on all platforms, they have been exposed running influence operations on Facebook and Facebook has taken them down. But the problem with TikTok is that they can do it much less transparently. Facebook can identify a foreign actor trying to put stuff on their platform, and they can get rid of it. But TikTok has to respond to the orders of the Chinese Communist Party because its parent company ByteDance this is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party as all major Chinese companies are. And that's where the problem lies, and that's where the solution comes from with the Congress. They're not proposing to ban TikTok. They're just proposing to separate TikTok from ByteDance - for it to be safe for Americans. And I think we should have that same option available to us.
PETERSON: Do you believe we should have that same option available to us? Senator Patterson says? I did see that Robert F Kennedy, obviously the independent candidate for president in the US, he's described the so-called TikTok ban as being a Trojan horse, horse that could allow the president to ban any website or app merely by asserting that they are controlled or guarded by a foreign adversary. Could this play into the hands Senator, of perhaps giving a government of the day that power, because they don't like some of what's being written about online, or that it might be skewing them against a particular political party?
PATERSON: No. I think a rhetoric like that is alarmist and over the top. TikTok is a unique social media platform which offers a different challenge to other social media platforms. We may disagree with the way in which Facebook or Twitter or Instagram operate, but ultimately they headquartered in Western democracies, they are subject to the rule of law and they are not directed by foreign governments. TikTok is directed by a foreign government it is ultimately controlled by a foreign government, and that's why it's different and why it's being treated as different in this legislation.
PETERSON: On another matter, but in a similar area, I see that your party is now pushing to make promoting crime online an offence with the powers to take down violent content.
PATERSON: Oly, many Australians are rightly very concerned that we've got young people out there engaging in violent crime, not just for its own sake anymore, but so they can film it and put it on social media, including TikTok by the way. They get notoriety and standing in their community by doing outrageous things and posting about it on social media. And we think there should be consequences. We think that aggravates the crime that they commit, and it should attract an additional sentence. And we think we should
have the powers to take that content off those platforms and ban those kids from using those platforms again.
PETERSON: Yeah. It's disgusting. I said earlier that there was some vision that I actually saw myself over the weekend, Senator, and you would have seen similar vision, if not the same vision of an older gentleman outside a supermarket in Queensland. And for no apparent reason, there's just a bunch of teenagers who decide to attack him. They film it, they posted online, and whoever's filmed this thing is laughing away. I actually felt sick, this isn't Australia this isn't what Australians do.
PATERSON: It's disgusting behaviour, but unfortunately videos like that are being uploaded to the internet almost every day in this country, certainly every week. And there's no real recourse for that, because right now, the eSafety Commissioner doesn't have legal authority to get that content removed. The people who are posting it might be able to be convicted for the crimes they are committing, but not for the act of posting it online. And the people who are filmed in those videos are utterly humiliated on the internet and that's outrageous, that should not be happening.
PETERSON: So you create a Commonwealth offence, basically, that would allow you to empower the eSafety Commissioner to bring these particular videos or images down from the internet. And as you say, the person who's filmed it or who has taken the photograph could be going to jail themselves for up to two years.
PATERSON: Exactly. And it's really consistent with the other things we've tried to do to make the online world safer. You can't broadcast violent abhorrent content like a terrorism video - that's taken down. You can't harass or menace someone online, you can be prosecuted for that. So why shouldn't you be able to be prosecuted for this as well?
PETERSON: Senator James Paterson, appreciate your time. Thank you.
PATERSON: Thanks for having me.
ENDS
